Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the
world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to
over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a
wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history,
humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced
features available, you will need to register first. Registration is
absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

I've said what I've been told -- same as you, only I have it first hand, and he has no support.

I'm getting behind-the-scenes feedback on this matter and there's more to it than has been said on the board...but none of it supports you.

The other thing is where are all the people who have felt you do what Ark does?

If you can do that kind of thing, people will definitely be talking about you in a strong positive context.

I don't see any of that.

It feels like I've built a big pile of dirt in my back yard and I'm telling everyone it is the equal of Fuji. Should it affect my thinking that everyone who sees my dirt pile tells me it's nothing like Fuji?

Of course, I haven't seen your alternate Fuji, but from everything you've said about it, it just adds up to "nothing like Fuji".

Well, bandwith is (relatively) free. Waste it all you want. But may I suggest that you take it elsewhere? Certainly, what you're describing has no relation to what we're talking about in this thread. Maybe you should just create an alternate thread....

Best wishes.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

Personally I don't see how that is much worse than saying someone is a dinosaur or saying they have nothing to contribute to a conversation.

Hello
Well not really.
a. Dinosaurs
They are extinct. Aikido as it is currently practiced is going to be replaced by aikido with aiki. It will still be aikido- just done with exponentially more power and control-like the founder had. So those who turn their back on internal training for aiki will in fact be headed the way of the dinosaurs. Hence accurate assessment of current events -not spurious insult.
b. Having nothing to contribute
The discussion of internal power is a subject that is known and has given attributes. There are now any number of aikido teachers and students who are training this way and they can all talk -one to another. Eric has demonstrated that he has no clue in his descriptions and (to no ones surprise) that he doesn't have one clue in real life either. Hence accurate assessment of current events -not spurious insult.
c. His continued and unwelcome presence in threads on a subject he knows nothing about reveals a lot about his character. It does not however make him a receptacle for vaginal cleansing fluid. Which was your less than accurate description of his behaviours and arguments.

Quote:

So do you think he's arguing just to argue at this point? At a certain point you have to wonder. There is a consensus between what you, Mike, and Rob say, there are people that have meant you that back up you can do what you say, there is someone that says Erick can't, ad nausea. Any time there is an interesting IS question Erick will post something on the thread about the human resonance frequency, and then all that happens is there are 15 pages of people arguing with him. What was it, 5 pages back on this thread was a nice answers for what 'IT' is...Maybe he likes the attention?
Anyway, off to work.

I cannot possibly fathom why he continues to embarrass himself this way, and remain oblivious to how he looks. Moreover, in the face of an ever mounting consensus (of a 100% conversion rate among Aikido teachers and students once they feel it) his argument and others are looking desperate, if not foolish.
The answer to him shipwrecking threads is to put him on the ignore list and stop pasting his quotes in replies. Thus to those who know or are interested in the topics, he becomes a non-entity.

If you think about it the uninformed alternate reality counter "arguments" will vanish to those wishing to have a discussion and for others the Alternate Reality arguments are then reduced to the comic relief that they are. There will be IT discussions and AR discussions!
Cheers
Dan

Why do I want to doggedly climb up to a high vantage on the geological accident of a pile of ash called Fuji, if I can "do a few calculations according to some theory" and eventually fly above it,and see a much larger context of the terrain? Climbing up gets me no higher point of view than Fuji provides, and leaves me stuck in the spot where Fuji just happened to vomit forth. Not that the views are not splendid, but the height itself is not bound to that path if one employs other methods.

Quote:

David Orange wrote:

If you can do that kind of thing, people will definitely be talking about you in a strong positive context.

See -- that is the difference. I don't care if you talk about me, good or bad. The reasons why these discussions remain so tied up in individual personalities and presumed conflicts is that the ideas themselves have not been developed adequately. At one point you had some thoughts on that score -- and while you may have concluded from your experience that the approach of your thinking at the time was misguided, the impulse to develop generally thought-out concepts was not.

It is precisely NOT about me when I write about the idea. My approach in that regard is only maddening because your focus is so narrowly on the person(s) -- not the concepts -- I am concerned with the thing itself and the ideas that describe it. People manifest the principles involved to whatever degree, or subject to known errors even, but the personal variables are only interesting insofar as they reveal the deeper concept of action.

The fact that everyone who engages this discussion as you are, tries so urgently to MAKE it about me, or about them, or about me vs. them, or them vs. them -- or whatever -- is pointless and inane. The title of the thread is "What is IT?" not "Whose is the baddest whupass mojo thingy ?" or some other sixth appendage length stretching sessions.

Quote:

David Orange wrote:

Certainly, what you're describing has no relation to what we're talking about in this thread.

So you keep saying -- and I keep asking -- why do you conclude that? Other than, of course, because Dinsdale told you I had transgressed the unwritten law. 'Cuz, ya know, that's good enough for me with ole Dinsy!

Should I believe you or my lying eyes ? If it is so "certain" then it should be straightforward to explain why. Explaining the concrete reasons for your view would better advance the idea, even if -- and especially if -- I were wrong....

I cannot possibly fathom why he continues to embarrass himself this way, and remain oblivious to how he looks.

Because when it comes to working out ideas, I am oblivious to anything but what is true -- I cannot speak to why anyone else cares about how I look ...

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

The answer to him shipwrecking threads is to put him on the ignore list and stop pasting his quotes in replies.

Thus to those who know or are interested in the topics, he becomes a non-entity.

Well, well. Shunning? .. are we ... Amish? I mean, really. What does that say about the durability of the whole "renovating aiki" project if it can be so trivially threatened by a mere set of ideas ? Why not rebut the ideas with better ideas and then we have all taught everyone a thing or two? Shipwrecks happen because the navigators don't know the shoals -- blaming the shoal doesn't help the essential problem. Get better charts.

Has anyone yet explained to anyone else WHY, concretely, the ideas presented are incorrect? Just asking.

It's not shunning as a punishment. I don't control the site, you don't belong in these discussions and you don't have the common decency to remove yourself after being asked to do so over and over. The only recourse here to that kind of behavour is to ignore the person.

Quote:

What does that say about the durability of the whole "renovating aiki" project if it can be so trivially threatened by a mere set of ideas ?

It isn't threatened. You have done exaclty nothing, had no impact whatsoever, and have no meaningful dialogue to offer anyone on the subject. If you ever do come up with anything worth reading I'm sure those who do know what they are talking about will inform you-if you haven't alienated everyone by then.

My only concern is not for me, but for others who might be looking. You have firmly establish that you don't know anything about the subject, so that's a good thing.

Quote:

Why not rebut the ideas with better ideas and then we have all taught everyone a thing or two?

I've done one better I have rebutted in person then explained how to do these things to those willing to do the work. There is no need to debate you or anyone. Again for me- one hundred thousand words ends in one...Duh! Once we touch hands.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much more so hands on instruction in a physical activity!!
In the kindest way I am telling you -you have nothing to offer here.

Quote:

Has anyone yet explained to anyone else WHY, concretely, the ideas presented are incorrect? Just asking.

Yes, in detail.
Come train. When you utterly fail I will do what I always do- show you how to fix it.
We go out and test and then ...and then...actually teach aiki. It's a really neat concept. One I hope the Japanese can learn for themselves. It may be hard- them being Japanese and all. It's a cultural thing. Maybe if they eat more mash potatoes.
Cheers
Dan

It should be enough to say that the results are running something like 98% against you, 1.5% pitying you and Buck and David Skaggs supporting you.....which really ought to make you do a double-take on your position.

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

Why do I want to doggedly climb up to a high vantage on the geological accident of a pile of ash called Fuji, if I can "do a few calculations according to some theory" and eventually fly above it,and see a much larger context of the terrain?

And there you go. That's the same thing you're trying to do with this thread and I think that should be a good enough place to leave it.

Fuji is "the skills". The only way to get to the top of that mountain is by physically absorbing the skills and changing the body in the process. But you prefer to give us "calculations" involving gyropscopics and resonance frequencies and other things that are worth baloney in your shoes when the sword is coming down.

Can you see why you would be ignored at a table of people who just climbed up and down Mt. Fuji and you drop in and tell everyone that you had the same experience as they did because you flew over Fuji. Moreover, your experience was better because you saw a wider landscape than they.

Your reaction from that group of people would be about the same as you receive from all experienced people on this board: note that this excludes your main supporters....

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

See -- that is the difference. I don't care if you talk about me, good or bad.

Well...since no one is talking "good" about you (at least in terms of IS skills) and you simply deny reports of any other nature...you're pretty well bullet-proof.

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

The reasons why these discussions remain so tied up in individual personalities and presumed conflicts is that the ideas themselves have not been developed adequately.

Au contraire. The ideas have been deeply and intricately developed for thousands of years and there are two groups of people: those who understand those ideas as they are, and those who don't understand the ideas and think that we need clearer ideas, involving gyroscopics and resonance. The only place "personalities" come in is when someone like yourself insists that his misguided thinking is perfectly equal to the original and well-understood thinking that developed the IT skills.

I got my pilot's license when I was seventeen, flying little Cessnas and Pipers. If I sat down at a table full of fighter pilots, I would have very little to say, especially when they began speaking of aerial combat. Sure, F-16s and Piper Cubs have some common characteristics and performances, but I'd have to be an idiot to think that my flying experiences qualify me to judge the statements of combat-experienced pilots. And though I might be too dumb to recognize that fact, myself, everyone else at the table would know it and if I tried to talk like one of them, they'd either invite me to leave or they would move to another table.

And that's where you are in this discussion of IT.

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

At one point you had some thoughts on that score -- and while you may have concluded from your experience that the approach of your thinking at the time was misguided, the impulse to develop generally thought-out concepts was not.

Well, there are "thought-out concepts" and then there are other things. Bank robbers always thoroughly think-out their plans before they rob the bank. Custer "thought-out" his plans before he went to Little Big Horn. Heck, W. thought out his plans before abandoning Afghanistan to go after Saddam. The point is, if your thinking is based on a slanted foundation, you're not going to be able to keep it lined up.

My biggest concern early on in these discussions was just exactly what people were talking about: a martial art, a method of chi gung, meditation...what? I gradually understood that they were talking about physical methods of doing things inside one's own body to manipulate incoming force and neutralize it: physical things--not intellectual frills. The big turning point for me was when I realized that the "suit", or the fascia of the body is a "whole-body-permeating" system of tissue that has very different functioning than muscles, nerves or bones and that the use of the fascial system was a major component of the IS skills. When I recognized that, while you may have "internal strength" it's not much good if you can't intentionally control it--and that control is demonstrated by the "baseline skills" described elsewhere on this board.

To now, the "baseline skills" of aikido might be said to be timing, tai sabaki, posture, distance and technique. All those skills can be demonstrated strictly through muscular action and alignment of the bones to be able to "brace" the structure in the direction one wants to apply power.

In the new paradigm, the "baseline skills" cannot be enacted through mainly muscular actions. In this paradigm, are use of the body's internal structures (not the muscles) to redirect incoming power such that the body does not lose its equilibrium and can return that force to the provider without muscular effort--which is to say, not using the muscles to drive the force but only to maintain the body's own organization, which is a far smaller effort than actually throwing someone with your muscular effort (even if you do it by "leading" them off balance first).

That's the real gold we're digging and we're not concerned about someone's personality nearly as much as we are that person's approach to using those factors to create internal strength.

Your personality becomes an issue because you make every effort to substitute alternate concerns (gyroscopics, etc.) for the truly meaningful problems of the internal connections of the bones, muscles, nerves and fascia of the body.

It's like a Newtonian physicist trying to correct a bunch of Einstein scholars about quantum reality.

In your case, it's more like a quantum physicist trying to tell a carpenter how to build a house according to quantum physics: it does not relate to his need. It doesn't solve his problems. It does not get the house built.

When everyone else is discussing bone alignment and the use of the fascial structure to convey intent, you come in with elaborate narratives that are strictly mental and, moreover, are not applicable to the human dimension when one is actively dealing with an attack. No degree of mathmatical calculation can apply when the other guy is trying to pound your face in.

That's the big difference. Nothing Dan or Mike says will get in the way of dealing with the weight, momentum and ill intent of another human being trying to kill you. But the stuff you go on about?????

It seems to be very pleasant and enjoyable for you....but very distatsteful for everyone else....

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

It is precisely NOT about me when I write about the idea. My approach in that regard is only maddening because your focus is so narrowly on the person(s) -- not the concepts -- I am concerned with the thing itself and the ideas that describe it.

Again, "the persons" are not my focus. The physical methods and skills are my concern and your ideas and descriptions are like a bogus driver's license a check passer uses to make himself appear acceptable to those who accept or reject. Why not just get on the right page if you want to discuss this topic? Understand that it is already very well defined and developed and that it requires physical movement based on "feeling" and not on schematics, charts and diagrams.

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

The fact that everyone who engages this discussion as you are, tries so urgently to MAKE it about me, or about them, or about me vs. them, or them vs. them -- or whatever -- is pointless and inane.

Try reading one of these threads with your own comments ommitted. You will find that, when you're not talking and people are not talking to or about YOU that we get into some deep discussions of methods and your name does not come up. You "make it about you" when you come in with such skewed comments and irrelevant ideas. It's the same reaction you'll get anywhere you try to interject the "concepts" of an inexperienced person into the discussions of experienced people. Plain and simple.

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

The title of the thread is "What is IT?" not "Whose is the baddest whupass mojo thingy ?" or some other sixth appendage length stretching sessions.

That's at least twice recently that you've mentioned that. You are the only one bringing that concept to the discussion, so if you want it out of the discussion, you should stop introducing it.

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

Explaining the concrete reasons for your view would better advance the idea, even if -- and especially if -- I were wrong....

See above. I'm sure if you drop the "gyroscopics" references and deal with the real-world-real-time-human-body-in-movement considerations, everyone's attitude toward you will change.

Good luck with that.

David

Last edited by David Orange : 10-06-2009 at 01:10 PM.

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

Shunning? .. are we ... Amish? I mean, really. What does that say about the durability of the whole "renovating aiki" project if it can be so trivially threatened by a mere set of ideas ? Why not rebut the ideas with better ideas and then we have all taught everyone a thing or two?

The problem is that you have seemingly set out to "rebut" everyone else's ideas with unweildy diatribes on ethereal whimsy that only distantly relate to anything involving human strength and effort. The proper ideas were set out in the beginning. Why bother to "rebut" someone's misguided "alternative" explanations? The thing is to just go back to the original propositions--not come up with new ones.

The only reason people don't ignore you already is just a friendly desire to help you see what the real subject is, but you just keep rebutting, so that ends up embarrassing the person who tries to help you....so....

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

Shipwrecks happen because the navigators don't know the shoals -- blaming the shoal doesn't help the essential problem. Get better charts.

Dan and pretty much everyone else already has the good charts. Notice the shipwrecks always happen when you get involved with your reasoning. That should tell you something....

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

Has anyone yet explained to anyone else WHY, concretely, the ideas presented are incorrect? Just asking.

My last post covered it pretty well, I think.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

The title of the thread is "What is IT?" not "Whose is the baddest whupass mojo thingy ?" or some other sixth appendage length stretching sessions.

That's at least twice recently that you've mentioned that. You are the only one bringing that concept to the discussion, so if you want it out of the discussion, you should stop introducing it.
Good luck with that.
David

Hi Dave
I have seen this reference before. It typically refers to the fact that this stuff is so flat; a pass/ fail, you can or you cannot, paradigm.
You can't fake it or "talk" your way around it, so those who hope to do the typical budo meet and greet, "You show me some things -and I of course must be capable of showing YOU something equal...so we can "share" just falls apart.

That, is very difficult for people to swallow or even imagine. Even worse when you see it done in one room with people from ICMA, Koryu, Aikido, Daito ryu, Karate, and MMA. For the most part things, like this have not been done before. In the Budo scheme of things it's tough to deal with such an overt power differential. Since the power differential is so offset and can be flatly discussed as such-the internet response is the adolescent dick measuring contest euphemisms applied to a very "non" contested reality-in order to down play a very real impact.
Fro some on the net they simply cannot fathom the type of offset being reported so matter of factly- so the best defense is to make "comparisons" a negative image.

Hm. In other words, we cannot even agree on the terms of a discussion. But that still does not mean things are as fruitless to discuss (even in different terms) as you maintain:

"The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves." Eric Hoffer

I am open to your disagreements, heck, I could hardly be unaware of them. I offer specifically responsive comments to points in a discussion as things go along. As others have just noted here, I make a comment from time to time, and then others seem to spend inordinately many posts trying to categorically exclude my comment FROM any discussion -- rather than simply saying "No, that cannot be right, because this works this way and that works the other way and here is an example: ___????___".

Just as a 'for instance' ...

If there is an objective truth, then "talk like we talk" is simply imitating you to fit in, rather than dealing with the objective truth using other concepts. If magnetism can manage with two mutually exclusive definitions of "field" we can carry on.

Simply saying, "Well, it doesn't feel that way, to me... so that can;t be right..." says not one blooming useful thing when (as I can show) we are expressly manipulating the body's structural balance sensing and compensation systems in the first place. That's what Ark is doing, as noted above. Similarly, seat-of-the-pants pilots end up in progressive spins and craters if they do not learn some counter-intuitive inertial mechanics.

The magnitude of blunt force to my periodic mouse squeak is interesting, though not usually very informative.

In the new paradigm, the "baseline skills" cannot be enacted through mainly muscular actions. In this paradigm, are use of the body's internal structures (not the muscles) to redirect incoming power such that the body does not lose its equilibrium and can return that force to the provider without muscular effort--which is to say, not using the muscles to drive the force but only to maintain the body's own organization, which is a far smaller effort than actually throwing someone with your muscular effort (even if you do it by "leading" them off balance first).

Hi David,

Where I come from this is not a 'new' paradigm, it is the one I have been working since I started on my aikido journey 17 years ago. In all of those years I have not been outside of my own federation, mainly because I haven't felt the need to and have never felt that the aikido I was learning was lacking in any way.

When I discovered aikiweb a few years ago I was pretty ignorant of other forms/styles of aikido. Now through reading, discussing and watching many videos, I have a much greater appreciation of the wider world of aikido and all it has to offer, from the hard as nails martial, to the soft and fluffy dancing. I read posts from the sublime to the ridiculous, and I have learnt much from some of the more informed members on the forums, particularly about some of the more buried history of our art.

The paradigm mentioned above I didn't really start to fully 'own' until I had been teaching for a while, even though I had felt it from my teacher from day 1. Any discussion about these skills whether they are called IS, IP, IT, aiki, ki, kokyu are going to get bogged down in terminology. It seem there is not a fully agreed dictionary/alphabet that we can all agree on. I do agree with Dan though, the proof of the pudding is in the 'hands on'.

I fully agree with the physical aspects contained within the quote I clipped above, however, in my own experience the 'redirection' of power is not a primarily a physical thing it is mental. Of course the body must be relaxed, co-ordinated (every limb connected to the centre/one point), completely free to move with non-contention. The mind initiates the redirection. The partners/opponents mind/ki is what needs to be redirected, if you can move their mind, you can move their body with little or no effort.

I like Dan's optimism that one day all aikido will be proper aiki-do, I hope that he is right and that I see it in my lifetime, but there may well be many who are set so far in their ways that they will not change. One only has to look at the 'faith' communities to see how difficult it is to change their paradigms even in the face of literally millions of tons of fossil evidence to the contrary. They may go the way of the dinosaurs, but they were around for a very long time before their time was up

Anyway, I do think that both you and Dan are being too dissmissive of Erick, he may well be using a different language to describe something that through his own endeavours and enquiry, he understands and explains in a way that most do not get, in other words it 'goes over their heads'. I can't really call him on it as much of it is just too complex for me. I like simplicity, and one of the reasons I love aikido so much is that it is so simple to do when you 'get it'. The problem is, it is devilishly hard to get to that place.

Do I have 'the skills'? I'd like to think so. Have I mastered them, most definitely no. Have I still got things to learn, of course. Am I worried by what is going on in the rest of the aikido world, not really. I am selfishly focussed on learning everything I can from my own teachers and passing on what I get and incorporate into myself to whoever wants to come and learn from me.

Nobody here seems to be offering a 'how to' guide/instruction manual to IT etc., probably because it cant be learnt through words, it has to be instructed by someone who can do it. My shock in all of this is that so few ( according to Dan, Mike etc, ) have these skills in aikido. Is it really as bad as they say out there?

Having said that I will be meeting Mike Sigman this weekend, so I may well be having my backside handed to me on a plate, I will let you all know how I get on

Here's what I said in 11/2005 (link to e-budo post) wrt some of the videos and hype floating around the forums:

Quote:

Saw these a while back when his student was pushing him as the greatest thing since sliced (crustless of course) bread. Honestly, not that impressed, if you've ever been thrown around by Don Angier or his guys, you'll see nothing new here. It's not that it's bad, but it's not exactly groundbreaking...

Sound familiar?

Here's what I wrote in 11/2006 after getting back from Japan and meeting *and feeling* Ark and Rob (link to post)

Quote:

So I just got back from a trip to Japan and Ark allowed me and a training partner of mine to work into one of his classes. Huge thanks to him, Rob, Adam and the rest of his guys. So having actually had a few hours of face time and more importantly hands ON time, I thought I should follow up on this post. The short version is that I'm currently soaking my feet in a lovely wasabi-soy concoction that should make having my feet in my mouth a much more plesant experience. Ark probably is about the best thing since crustless sliced bread, and (to me at least) it most certainly felt groundbreaking. But beyond Ark's own very considerable skill, I was equally impressed with the very high level of skill of his students that had been with him for a couple years. It was clear that not only was he able to do some amazing stuff, but that he had a system for building these same internal skills in others. Further, he's able to do so in a relatively short period of time. Rob's been training with Ark for about three years (if I remember correctly) and easily had better body skills than nearly anyone I have dealt with in Aikido in the US, that list would include some 6th-8th dans who are serious mucky mucks in the seminar circuit. What they're doing is not very similar to what I've seen of Don Angier's Yanagi Ryu, but felt a bit more like what Systema might be one day. I generally call it like I see it, but when I'm wrong, I'll be the first to admit it, and I was certainly wrong on this one. Again, huge thanks to Rob for coordinating our visit and Ark for having us. My only regret is the sleep I lost that night trying desparately to wrap my head around some of the things that were done in class.

The important thing was that I went and checked it out and then changed how I was training.

It's actually kind of an interesting thread, partly because there are lots of the usual suspects (Rob, Dan, Mike, Ron, Doug, David O...) but also because it was four years ago and it's basically the same discussion that's been going on ever since.

David, I am curious if feeling Ark and working the Aunkai stuff shed some light on some of our past discussions where it really felt we were talking past each other?

You can't fake it or "talk" your way around it, so those who hope to do the typical budo meet and greet, "You show me some things -and I of course must be capable of showing YOU something equal...so we can "share" just falls apart.

I know I didn't have anything to "share" when I met you or when I met Ark. It's like going to lunch with Warren Buffet and offering to pay, but he only wants to eat at the place with $500.00 hamburgers. I just couldn't keep up. And, frankly, I haven't often been in that position with aikido. Both meetings were way over my head but both were also at the top of my rewarding experiences in martial arts.

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

Fro some on the net they simply cannot fathom the type of offset being reported so matter of factly- so the best defense is to make "comparisons" a negative image.

It gives me a better understanding of why a lot of high-level people don't say anything at all. On the other hand, through arguing these things out, sometimes from a very stubborn point of view, I have learned a lot.

I just wish I had been able to meet up much earlier and cut through all those months of arguing because I would be a big jump ahead by now if I had.

Still, I've made some progress in IS and I've also made some great new friends (with whom I used to argue rather bitterly), so I have a pretty optimisitic view over all.

I'll e-mail you soon about matters.

Thanks.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

There is no need to debate you or anyone. Again for me- one hundred thousand words ends in one...Duh! Once we touch hands.

Then why post anything, at all ? If discussions served no purpose, then this forum would be useless to you. But you do. So I conclude it has own usefulness despite being more ephemeral, and will continue to use it, as you do. Your consensus is narrow, and 59K views on my paltry eight blog posts (outside of your "proprietary" discussions") distinctly suggest the "consensus" is toward perceived usefulness of this forum for such purposes. I could be wrong, though.

Quote:

David Orange wrote:

You will find that, when you're not talking and people are not talking to or about YOU that we get into some deep discussions of methods

If that is so, then perhaps pick something out of your deep discussion of method that shows something I have described as wrong. That way those who are liable to be misled by my pointless musings will not be led astray before they can get me on the ignore list so as to avoid soiling themselves with impure thoughts.

For instance, Ark (only because his are available) and his shaking demonstration. I see applied resonance, illustrated in aiki-taiso of furitama and tekubi furi, and -- in a far more concentrated way -- in the most effective atemi, which he also demonstrates. His connected manipulations -- are similarly, no mystery, nor hard to do, once understood and trained. Doesn't mean they are trivial, or that his training method does not have value just because I understand what he is doing.

Here, try the form, fill in the brackets with some of the deep discussion I have been apparently missing and help people understand how wrong and idiotic I am. It would do them a service, really...

Quote:

"No, that cannot be right, because [this] works [this] way and [that] works [the other way] and here is [an example]: ___????___".

Not from any teacher I've met and not by applying TFM to the aikido teachings I received. That application resulted in my "Zero Degree" teaching method, which did go a long way in the right direction, but which would never have resulted in my developing power such as Dan and Ark have demonstrated.

Is that how you started learning IT?[/quote]

No. I started learning IT by arguing like hell with Mike Sigman and Rob John on e-budo, exchanging opinions and e-mails and twisting fine points to no avail.

The Feldenkrais did open the door to my understanding, however, when I was lying on the floor one night, working on relaxation. I found a point and relaxed it, and when I did, I felt the relaxation surge up along the side of my body and out into my left arm. It was a feeling I'd had many times before, but I had always accounted it to "muscles relaxing". This time, I realized that what I felt was not muscles relaxing, but a whole bunch of fascial tissue. When I felt that, I realized through direct recognition that the fascia is actually a single whole-body-permeating system, separate from the muscles, bones, nerves, blood vessels and viscera of the body. When I understood that, I realized what Mike Sigman had been talking about with "the suit". Then I began to wonder how the heck you could "use" that fascial component of the whole body for MA techniques.

After that, I began to understand Mike and Rob's comments better and the more I read, the more they unlocked for me and the more I was also able to understand Dan Harden's comments. See this thread:

After that, it started coming more quickly to me and eventually I was very fortunate and blessed to be able to meet with Ark, and later with Dan.

So Feldenkrais was not the method of my discovery, but it is a very useful tool in learning to sense with the body. It magnifies one's ability to sense, especially to sense amounts of effort, and the inner connectedness of the whole body.

Feldenkrais alone will not impart MA internal skills but it will develop one's ability to learn and assimilate the skills.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

Anyway, I do think that both you and Dan are being too dissmissive of Erick, he may well be using a different language to describe something that through his own endeavours and enquiry, he understands and explains in a way that most do not get, in other words it 'goes over their heads'. I can't really call him on it as much of it is just too complex for me. I like simplicity, ... Nobody here seems to be offering a 'how to' guide/instruction manual to IT etc., probably because it cant be learnt through words, it has to be instructed by someone who can do it.

The most useful and simple thing is physical models, which are images of action -- not equations ( though they exist) --- not complex behavioral laws (though they exist) -- but images and shapes that one can see and feel in the actions that are otherwise hard to categorize.

Where I come from this is not a 'new' paradigm, it is the one I have been working since I started on my aikido journey 17 years ago. In all of those years I have not been outside of my own federation, mainly because I haven't felt the need to and have never felt that the aikido I was learning was lacking in any way.

Yes, this "new paradigm" is actually the original. It was obscured by the timing/distance/posture/technique paradigm and that seems to have spread through most of the world. But you are right that the "new paradigm" is only new to those who have held a different idea all these years.

I've only trained in the US and in Japan, but when I was in Japan I met people from all over the world. I didn't meet anyone who had more power than my Japanese shihans but if those shihans had power like Dan and Ark, they didn't demonstrate it.

Quote:

Mark Freeman wrote:

I fully agree with the physical aspects contained within the quote I clipped above, however, in my own experience the 'redirection' of power is not a primarily a physical thing it is mental. Of course the body must be relaxed, co-ordinated (every limb connected to the centre/one point), completely free to move with non-contention. The mind initiates the redirection. The partners/opponents mind/ki is what needs to be redirected, if you can move their mind, you can move their body with little or no effort.

You are talking like Dan, now. I understand that's true, but I'm still at such a basic level of working with the developmental exercises that I haven't progressed to the level of moving the partner's mind. I can do it to some degree under the "old" paradigm, but not yet within the IS skills. But that's what everyone has been telling me I'm missing.

Quote:

Mark Freeman wrote:

Anyway, I do think that both you and Dan are being too dissmissive of Erick, he may well be using a different language to describe something that through his own endeavours and enquiry, he understands and explains in a way that most do not get, in other words it 'goes over their heads'. I can't really call him on it as much of it is just too complex for me. I like simplicity, and one of the reasons I love aikido so much is that it is so simple to do when you 'get it'. The problem is, it is devilishly hard to get to that place.

I was willing to give Erick the benefit of the doubt for a long time but I've finally been convinced that he really doesn't have a clue about the level of work we're discussing. And while I can appreciate a little dense and complex language (I edit biostatistical research papers, among other things), the feeling I get from Erick's posts is not like that. It seems like he wants to be counted among those who "know" but the things he says just don't translate into anything useable. And he won't take the step of going out and getting hold of Dan, Mike or Ark to find out for himself whether he even knows what he's talking about. But he will go on and on with those convoluted explanations that seem to be about nothing at all. And he gets very defensive when you tell him that. It doesn't make me believe him any more.

Quote:

Mark Freeman wrote:

Nobody here seems to be offering a 'how to' guide/instruction manual to IT etc., probably because it cant be learnt through words, it has to be instructed by someone who can do it. My shock in all of this is that so few ( according to Dan, Mike etc, ) have these skills in aikido. Is it really as bad as they say out there?

Well...I'm afraid that it is in the US, anyway. As for learning through words, I did get a big boost when Dan once posted an exact how-to description for receiving a push to the chest. I was able to take that and get a friend to push on me and I could do it right away. But there's nothing like direct hands-on instruction.

Anyway, I do think we'll get more how-to little by little--especially if some people would just keep quiet and listen rather than stinking up the threads with a lot of self-entertaining folderol.

Quote:

Mark Freeman wrote:

Having said that I will be meeting Mike Sigman this weekend, so I may well be having my backside handed to me on a plate, I will let you all know how I get on

From what I hear, you will know without a doubt whether you have really been pursuing what we're talking about here or if you were mistaken.

It sounds like you know, but meeting someone like Mike can open your eyes to a whole world you never dreamed of: it was right there in front of me, all along, hidden in plain sight, but it took me a long time to recognize it.

Please let us know how that goes!

Best to you.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

Here, try the form, fill in the brackets with some of the deep discussion I have been apparently missing and help people understand how wrong and idiotic I am. It would do them a service, really...

Better. Why don't you agree to meet with us in Atlanta in January? I'll be glad to buy you a bottle of champagne (to take with you) if you can do a fraction of what Dan does. And if that's the case, I will hassle your descriptions no more.

Best to you.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

The most useful and simple thing is physical models, which are images of action -- not equations ( though they exist) --- not complex behavioral laws (though they exist) -- but images and shapes that one can see and feel in the actions that are otherwise hard to categorize.

Short of actually touching people, words can be a very good medium for exchange, but first the speaker has to understand the subject and second, he has to tailor the words to pure simplicity. I think it was Einstein who said if you can't explain something simply, it shows that you really don't understand it.

Mike and Rob have always said "If you can't explain it, you don't understand it."

But if your explanations are so dense and convoluted that no one really understands them (to me, actually, they are so pointless that they become boring and I just cease trying to read them), then chances are very good that you don't want anyone to clearly understand them. And that is a good bet that they'll think you understand it so much better than them that they give you credit for understanding without really being sure.

I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

Best to you.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

You are talking like Dan, now. I understand that's true, but I'm still at such a basic level of working with the developmental exercises that I haven't progressed to the level of moving the partner's mind. I can do it to some degree under the "old" paradigm, but not yet within the IS skills. But that's what everyone has been telling me I'm missing.

Hi David,

The real joy I have in practicing aikido is in my own personal discovery of how far the mind/body connection can be taken. Trying to teach what I have learned from my teacher, to others, is where I have really gained the most insight and therefore the most progress in my understanding of what I percieve 'aiki' skills to be. The body must be prepared to work in harmony with (but dutifully following) the mind. The mind thinks it, the body does it. I can do things now that I couldn't a while back. More of that later though...

Quote:

Well...I'm afraid that it is in the US, anyway. As for learning through words, I did get a big boost when Dan once posted an exact how-to description for receiving a push to the chest. I was able to take that and get a friend to push on me and I could do it right away. But there's nothing like direct hands-on instruction.

Thats what I like about all this stuff, most of it can be conveyed fairly simply, in fact the more simply explained the better.. On this particular exercise, I can take a frontal push to the chest with uke taking a run up, redirect the push back, so that they bounce off my chest, I saw video footage of O Sensei and Shioda doing it, so tried it based on how I assumed it was done. Well, I can make it work with my students anyway. There is a possibility that they are just being kind to me, and I am deluding myself and in turn them, but why would we want to persue something so false. I don't see it as much of a big thing, just something that comes with co-ordination, something that will get done in a lesson, before moving on to another exercise.

Quote:

From what I hear, you will know without a doubt whether you have really been pursuing what we're talking about here or if you were mistaken.

It sounds like you know, but meeting someone like Mike can open your eyes to a whole world you never dreamed of: it was right there in front of me, all along, hidden in plain sight, but it took me a long time to recognize it.

I'm looking forward to it, I am going with as an open a mind as I can muster, I hope that I am not mistaken, it is always a possibility though! I'm sure I will learn much, I am prepared to steal as much of Mike's art as I can get away with

On this particular exercise, I can take a frontal push to the chest with uke taking a run up, redirect the push back, so that they bounce off my chest, I saw video footage of O Sensei and Shioda doing it, so tried it based on how I assumed it was done. Well, I can make it work with my students anyway. There is a possibility that they are just being kind to me, and I am deluding myself and in turn them, but why would we want to persue something so false. I don't see it as much of a big thing, just something that comes with co-ordination, something that will get done in a lesson, before moving on to another exercise.

Your comment that "you don't see it as much of a big thing" confuses me, because it *is* a big thing. Perhaps you wouldn't experience it as such, if all you know is for it to be present all the time, but still ...

Quote:

Mark Freeman wrote:

Having said that I will be meeting Mike Sigman this weekend

Since I'll be there too, would you mind showing me the exercise you mentioned in the post I quoted above?

Hello Mark
The manner of the exercise you are describing is more "technique" oriented. The origin is what is important, not necessarily the result on people. It gets confusing because external movement can mimic internal, and there are any number of partly internal, partly external involvements in between.
If you meet Mike ask him to explain it to you. Either that or it will become obvious on its own.
If you concentrate more on how you hold energy in your body and move it, many things -effects- happen to forces coming in on you. These "things or "effects" become the essence of many waza.

Think of it this way; if you have energy going up/ down, side /side, forward /back, and in and out in all directions, then there is no plane or planar aspect to you that is unsupported. Your are "held" in stasis in movement. Any force coming in to you is sent to a path of your choosing almost automatically. Either by will or by "feel" from constant training. There are many complexities to add to this with movement and means to train the body to move-these are not all the same nor are they all equal either. Some are better -more universal- ways to fight than others.
So taking Shioda’s chest bump or any number of directed or “overt” force redirections is just simply another way to move -not a “technique.” I’m not a big fan of that move simply because while being “correct,” it’s really rather retarded for real fighting. Its nothing more than another Ki trick with traing crash test dummy. The same body movement is just as real in grappling its just not as visible, or dramatic in a real fight. Moreover, Shioda could never pull that crap on someone with decent internal skills, so more serious means would be called for.
And that leads me to my final comment on "not that big of a deal." I continue to caution people not to judge if the person demonstrating these things is not that good or just so-so. Meet someone who can demonstrate internal power to the extent that it is "a big deal" and very obvious. Why? Because it is a big deal, and will change your martial arts forever.
Anyway, I hope you have fun
Dan